Reading, Learning and Growing

Pregnancy Diary: 34 Weeks

Baby is: as big as a pineapple. He has been wriggling around a lot and I feel a bit more comfortable so I think that foot is out of my ribs for now.

I am: feeling quite calm right now so it’s probably best to write this before that changes! My back pain got a lot worse at the end of last week, and has continued to be quite bad over the weekend, so this week got off to a horrible start. But, although it’s still painful, I think it’s slightly better today than it was and my movement is not quite so restricted. I’m hoping that the improvement continues so I can get some housework done because it’s horrible watching the chaos build up, and the stress of that makes everything else harder to deal with. I’m still not sleeping much either – all the usual reasons, with leg cramps thrown into the mix as well.

I had an appointment at the hospital clinic today, and was seen separately by a nurse, a midwife and a consultant, after which I had to have some blood tests. By the end of it I couldn’t wait to get out of there. It was stressful for a lot of reasons. The clinic was running late and Paul had to go back and collect Tiddler from preschool, so I was on my own which always seems to be when things go wrong. I found out I have protein and leukocytes in my urine, so that has to be checked out. Probably just a UTI, but the protein thing makes me nervous as it is a sign of pre-eclampsia. I’m sure they would have mentioned if my blood pressure was high though (in the stress of the moment I forgot to ask), so it’s not very likely to be that.

It took the midwife a really long time to find the baby’s heartbeat too, which was horrible, but she did find it in the end and everything seems to be fine. Then I saw the consultant, who said, as I suspected, that I need to start taking Metformin because my early morning sugars have been either borderline or a little bit high. It’s really disappointing, as my sugars have been fine after meals and it seems very marginal. The consequence is no home birth, no midwife-led unit and the possibility of continuous monitoring in labour. I’m not looking forward to the prospect of another hospital birth, but I know the positions that work for me, and I know that it’s possible to be monitored without lying on a bed so I will just have to be assertive – or maybe Paul will!

So after all that, and with a sore back and two sore arms (one from the blood tests today, the other from the whooping cough injection I had yesterday) it’s surprising that I am still feeling calm but at the moment I am. I think that bizarrely the fact that this baby is already causing trouble (like the rest of them, I’m tempted to add) somehow makes me more sure than ever that he’s entirely meant to be. The thing about children is that they drive you a little bit crazy a lot of the time, but then they catch you out by being completely amazing and lovely and you forgive them. I’m sitting on the sofa, the house has finally gone quiet so I’ve got time to pay attention to the smallest one who is moving around reassuringly and I’m quite enjoying watching my bump. I’m so looking forward to meeting him, and I know all this trouble will definitely be worth it.